Contents:
- Ideas of Spiritual Ascent and Theurgy from the Ancients to Ficino and Pico
- Toward a Generalized Standard Model of Spiritual Astral Ascent Cosmology
- Useful Motifs in the Book Hermetic Spirituality
- Say No to Non-Drug Entheogens
Ideas of Spiritual Ascent and Theurgy from the Ancients to Ficino and Pico
Ideas of Spiritual Ascent and Theurgy from the Ancients to Ficino and Pico
by Kirsty Laura Pattison MA
October 2020
https://theses.gla.ac.uk/81873/
Other article:
Phenomenology and Altered States of Consciousness: A New Framework for Analysis
Attila Szabo, Lajos Horváth, Csaba Szummer
2014
https://www.academia.edu/13312112/Phenomenology_and_Altered_States_of_Consciousness_A_New_Framework_for_Analysis
Find:
- ogdoad 8,
- fate,
- fixed: 1 n/a
- heimarmene 0 hits.
Toward a Generalized Standard Model of Spiritual Astral Ascent Cosmology
– Cybermonk August 7, 2022:
Kirsty Pattison quotes a quote from start of Copenhaver’s book.
The entire quote is highly relevant, but here’s the key part: keep in mind 7 = Saturn = highest wandering star level, “cosmos” seems to not include fixed stars level per Hanegraaff, so 8th (which MUST be where fixed stars would be) is called “hypercosmic”.
“at the seventh zone the deceit that lies in ambush. [26] And then, stripped of the effects of the cosmic framework, the human enters the region of the Ogdoad;56 he has his own proper power, and along with the blessed he hymns the father… They rise up to the father in order to surrender themselves to the powers, and having become powers, they enter into God. This is the final good for those who have received knowledge: to be made God.”
That particular passage, in isolation, partly appears to support Erik Davis’ Led Zeppelin IV book page 118 about spiritual ascent cosmology levels.
Davis’ 2005 book lowers the Empyrean down from level 10 to level 8 (fixed stars/ eternalism) and halts, with (like my 1997 Core theory) no level transcending no-free-will. His concept of the Emperian is a block universe no-free-will model, not transcending that to reach (we can say) qualified possibilism-thinking; “transcending eternalism”. The spirit transcends Heimarmene, where the soul remains.
But Theurgy’s level 8 is seemingly above heimarmene – hard to tell; Hanegraaff hasn’t hammered on figuring out this point, it’s an open question for him where the fixed stars go so he is mute, and confusion is unresolved.
Against Davis, Mithraism/Gnosticism and Christianity have a level (or 2, or 3 subdivisions) higher than block universe eternalism, and that level is called the Empyrean.
Davis’ 2005 book presents a flattened model that doesn’t break out “heimarmene transcendence” into two levels like my David Ulansey Precession 2003 posting introduced/ explained/ modelled.
The ultimate goal/referent for Egodeath theory is, CLARIFY HOW IN MYTH, DEATH AND REBIRTH HAPPEN WHEN CONSCIOUS OF ETERNALISM.
My job is to neaten and explicitly reconcile the cosmologies and myth systems (to map them efficiently to the Egodeath theory), not confusingly, silently omit the fixed stars like Hanegraaff does and misuse the word “astral” and “stars” and “cosmos” to mean only the 7 wandering stars (planets).
Discussions of variant cosmologies and fixed stars and Heimarmene and Saturn map to the referent per the Egodeath theory: mental model transformation from naive possibilism thinking to eternalism thinking, and then to qualified possibilism thinking when tight cognitive binding resumes.
I rummage through spiritual writings looking for confirmation of the key principle WHERE THERE’S EXPERIENCING OF ETERNALISM, THERE IS MENTAL MODEL TRANSFORMATION.
I try to bring all religious mythology, all four spiritual cosmology-level systems into alignment in the clearest most consistent simplest way, and so I’m against variations among the four brands of astral ascent mysticism/ spiritual ascent cosmology.
* Gnosticism
* Theurgy/Hermeticism – does it have a deviant placement of the “Heimarmene/ eternalism/ no-free-will/ non-branching possibilities” experiential transformative realization in Saturn instead of at the other schemes’ standard location, “Fixed Stars plus the Saturn gate”?
* Mithraism
* Christianity
The mess that is the Hermetic text fragments, their vagueness about where Heimarmene is and where the fixed stars are, must be solved by:
I need to build a simple clear mapping from a 3-level Egodeath theory model to a savvy carefully framed Generalized Standard Model of Spiritual Astral Ascent Cosmology
Davis’ 2005 book presents an impressively clear understanding, & description, of my outdated 1997 model. : /
Davis didn’t find my 2003 upward expansion per David Ulansey’s book about “Mithraism = precession of equinoxes = transcening eternalism” in my 2003 posting which must be present at Egodeath.com because that posting was before Valentines Day 2004.
My 2006 main article, asserting transcending the block universe, didn’t exist for Erik Davis’ 2005 book Led Zeppelin IV pages 118-119 & 122.
There’s a whole cluster of specific questions I’ve identified, though: how much deviance is there within “Hermetic texts”?
Hanegraaff writes about aspects of that problem, and about: Which texts are actually Hermetic?
Do Hermetic texts discuss the sphere of the fixed stars (how could they not?)
How deviant is Hermetic texts’ spiritual ascent cosmology vs. that of Gnosticism, Mithraism, and Christianity? Especially regarding: what’s the highest astral[broad sense: wandering & fixed stars] level at which Heimarmene rules – Saturn, or fixed stars?
Erik Davis well-covers himself when he writes “various interpretations”.
Davis used my 1997 model not my 2003 model that’s informed by David Ulansey’s hypercosmic (percession of equinoxes transcending the fixed stars/Heimarmene) model.
My 2003 posting defining the standard astral ascent mysticism / spiritual ascent cosmology model became a subsection in my 2006 main article.
In my book review of Hanegraaff’s book Hermetic Spirituality, I will point out Davis’ “error” but also point out Davis’ right statement “interpretations varied”.
Then, where does that leave us, now that the Egodeath theory has mapped Hanegraaff’s book’s cosmology as best as Hanegraaff’s “open question” of where to put the fixed stars will permit?
I continue asserting my mapping of the Egodeath theory to the standard late 10-level cosmology model, but I note how to vary that mapping in case some Hermetic texts place an eternalism rebirth at level 7 (Saturn) or level 8 (fixed stars).
Hanegraaff needs to focus on the question of where the Hermetic texts put the fixed stars, which represent Heimarmene.
Expressed directly, the question is:
In the four spiritual ascent cosmology levels systems:
What’s the highest level at which Heimarmene and a kind of “death and rebirth regarding Heimarmene” resides: Saturn, or fixed stars?
Saturn threatens and “gates” the child-mode thinking.
Functionally, Saturn & fixed stars both together are treated as the gate – or possibly a pair of gates.
1) Pass through gate 1 to die and be reborn into eternalism-consciousness;
2) Pass through gate 2 to move from soul to spirit, qualified possibilism thinking, transcending cosmic determinism/ fatedness/ eternalism/ block universe.
First we die to possibilism-thinking and reach no-free-will/heimarmene/ eternalism/ block-universe awareness, and then, we transcend basic eternalism-thinking and end up with qualified possibilism-thinking.
Like two gates: Saturn as a gate, and then the sphere of the fixed stars as a gate.
Article section: Transcending Determinism Requires Two Jumps
Saturn together with the fixed stars can be treated as the key single point of reference for experiential mental transformation: no-free-will.
Personal control dynamics, specifically and emphatically, is the pivotal climactic nature of the key altered-state experiencing and revelation of heimarmene/eternalism/ the frozen non-branching block universe.
Spiritul cosmologies must be recognized as centered on the altered-state experience of block universe no-free-will & non-control, loss of control; cybernetic control death, control instability and restoring personal viable control stability by seeing the uncontrollable Source OF CONTROL THOUGHTS.
Useful Motifs in the Book Hermetic Spirituality
Hanegraaff’s book covers useful elements to map the Egodeath theory to (bolstering corroboration of that Theory, our understanding of the main referent of myth, explanatory coherence, etc.):
- reverence for the Source (pege) of all that exists
- exorcising negative daimons
- fear & trembling
- transcending heimarmene, astral fate
- entheogens, the intense altered state
- astral ascent mysticism / spiritual ascent cosmology levels
Say No to Non-Drug Entheogens
Kudos for Hanegraaff to taking up my criticism of his Dictionary of Gnosis for lacking the entheogenic altered state.
Hanegraaff’s imaginal construction of “non-drug entheogens” is an extreme overselling and over-elevation of cave meditation and imagination exercises, which are IN-CONTROL, thus PRETEND METHODS.
Those alleged, imposter methods are merely activities to do in the entheogen-induced altered state, and won’t make those activities effective at producing the divine transcendent loss-of-control ego death experience that forces the mental model transformation about control agency and possibility branching.
Against Hanegraaff’s book and keynote article, the word ‘entheogen’ by definition EXCLUSIVELY means substances – that’s the whole point and purpose of the word, per Jonathan Ott’s book The Angels’ Dictionary, and per Ruck and Wasson’s coining of the word. Really, by the exact same fallacious argument, this is tantamount to Hanegraaff proposing that we swallow the idea of “non-drug psychedelics”.
He wrote in his 2012 keynote article/chapter of the book Contemporary Esotericism, Entheogenic Esotericism (cited three times in this book, constituting 3 out of the 5 occurrences of the non-Indexed word ‘entheogen’) that he regretted not taking into account censorship, when he wrote about “no evidence for psychedelics in New Age” in his 1996 book.
He is not permitted to write realistically here. His treatment of this topic is constrained and censored so he puts forth the fallacious claim, in effect, that cave meditation and in-control imagination exercises actually produce the same intense and effective transcendent loss-of-control altered state that a peak dosage of Cubensis would produce, in a series of ten on-demand sessions.
Cave meditation doesn’t measure up to this Eadwine standard.
Hanegraaff’s imagination produces, using the fallacious argument “etymology of a word sets the meaning of the word”, he proposes the concept of non-drug psychedelics, in order to falsely and artificially claim that cave meditation “can”[despite doesn’t] cause the transcendent loss-of-control experience that maximum doses of Cubensis produces.
Cave meditation, and in-control meditation exercises, is not the kind of thing that produces loss-of-control and mental model transformation, as shown in Eadwine psalter folio page f134, leg-hanging mushroom tree and banqueting, self-threatening psalter reader, and two cybercides, in case one isn’t enough (both of them smiling, like Hanegraaff’s “thoroughly positive” depiction of Hermeticism).
Hanegraaff casually proposes to open the definition of the word ‘entheogens’ to include the enemy, the false claim that those activities are methods of producing the loosecog state. Such a modest proposal is unwelcome in the extreme, in the field of entheogen scholarship, and it’s offensive to allow these fraudulent imposters into the sacred space of actual entheogens.
Just say no to Hanegraaff’s worst idea of any academic ever: non-drug entheogens.
Hanegraaff “broadens current understandings” of the word, like robbing a bank broadens current understandings of making a withdrawal.
Hanegraaff’s 3-times cited keynote-speech article “Entheogenic Esotericism” renders the word “entheogen” unusable by scramling its meaning and redefining it to mean its exact antonym.
Against page 5-6 of Hanegraaff’s book, where he continues to propose “entheogens (sensu lato)”, which cites his 2012 article “Entheogenic Esotericism”: as I posted to the world-wide web eight years before Hanegraaff’s 2012 article:
Subject: Authentic esotericism is entheogenic esotericism (June 12, 2004) – “Authentic esotericism is entheogenic esotericism. Entheogens are the key to esotericism. This is the simplest possible theory of esotericism, and the most natural, the least contrived and strained. Theories of esotericism that are not based on entheogens suffer from the problem of grandiose verbiage, unmet promises and claims, chronic vagueness, excuses for lack of potent and prompt efficacy, and no ability to deliver the experiences which are talked about. Drug-free esotericism doesn’t work; it is not effectively ergonomic.”
The Egodeath theory 